Feehan, Christine - The Scarletti Curse (9 page)

Were they coming for her, the don's minions? She padded on bare feet back to
the window to peer anxiously in the direction of the palazzo. Right now, were
they gathering torches and coming together at the command of the don to call
her witch? She could hear her heart beating far too loud and fast. Earlier she
had managed to appear calm, but the truth was, she was terrified. This was her
home; she knew no other. These people were her family; she wanted no other. She
did not want to attempt to flee, and no one wanted to be burned as a witch. And
what of her people? Would they suffer for having harbored such an abomination
in their midst? Was the voice she was hearing a sign from God? Had she gone mad?

The wind rattled the small hut and found its way in through the chinks,
making her shiver. It howled mournfully through the trees, an eerie, ghostly
sound that rose like a thin wail and died off, only to return again and again.
She heard the hunting cries of distant wolves, first the leader of the pack and
then the others answering, signaling the presence of prey. The cries sent
another shiver along her spine. The mist from the ocean had turned to a heavy
fog, shrouding the surrounding hillside. The wind spun the viscous vapor until
it appeared to boil angrily, and shadows moved within the gray-white veil as if
edging closer and closer. All the while the voice murmured to her, a low,
insistent command Nicoletta tried not to hear.

She stood watching at the window most of the night until the wind died down
and took the relentless whisperings with it. She was slumped against the wall
at dawn, sound asleep, when young Ricardo, son of her friend Laurena burst into
the hut after only a perfunctory knock.

"You have to come now.
Mia madre
said you have to go to the farm
of her sister. Zia Lissandra is very ill. Her
bebe
is coming, but
something is wrong.
Madre
says do not let her sister die, Donna
Nicoletta." His face was white, and he delivered his message without taking
a single breath. Sagging against the door, he looked at Nicoletta with tears in
his eyes. "She was screaming, Nicoletta. Zia Lissandra was screaming. I
ran here as fast as I could."

Nicoletta was immediately awake, hurrying to soothe the boy. "You have
done well, Ricardo. Your madre will be proud of you. I shall come at once. You
light a candle to the good Madonna that my work this morning goes well."

At the sound of Ricardo's high-pitched, frightened voice, Maria Pia sat up
on her bed and looked anxiously around, afraid the don's men had come to take
Nicoletta from her.

Nicoletta bent to kiss her. "I must go now. To Lissandra, ill in
childbirth. Follow as quickly as you are able. I cannot wait; it sounds too
urgent." She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, caught up her satchel
of medicaments, and rushed from the hut, her bare feet silently slapping the
ground.

Thoughts and fears of witchcraft and the don were shoved aside as she prayed
all the way to the farm. Lissandra was young yet to be a mother. Not yet
sixteen, she had married a man much older than she. Nicoletta and Lissandra
were friends, and Nicoletta was terrified of losing her. Already she had seen
far too many women lose their lives in the birthing process.

The farm was some distance away, and Nicoletta lost track of the times she
begged the Madonna to lend wings to her feet. Maria Pia would take well over an
hour to make the trek. Whatever had to be done would be done by Nicoletta
alone. She almost wished she did have magic at her fingertips to aid her. Every
step was uphill and steep. Her injured calf was burning by the time she saw the
torches lit around the farmhouse where Lissandra resided with her husband,
Aljandro.

He flung open the door, having obviously been watching for her, his huge
bulk filling the frame, his face twisted with guilt. "Hurry, Nicoletta. I
fear you are too late."

Nicoletta pushed aside his terror along with her own and reached deep inside
her for calm. It was there, the reserve she could always count on, draw on, and
she entered the dwelling as a confident, assured healer. Lissandra's sister,
Laurena, leapt to her feet with a cry of relieved greeting.

The house was already filled with black-shawled women, mourners congregating
to wail for the dead. Nicoletta's dark eyes flashed fire. "Is she gone
then?" She hissed the question at them, and they all cringed at her
evident displeasure. Immediately they ceased their incessant wailing. Not one
dared defy her or point out that she was barely past being a child herself.
Nicoletta was a powerful healer, and they were very superstitious. If Nicoletta
could heal, she might very well be able to harm them as well.

"Laurena, remove these women to another room, where they will be able
to pray to the Madonna in peace," Nicoletta ordered prudently. "I
will need water boiled and clean cloth." She approached Lissandra with
more confidence than she felt. The girl was whimpering, her stomach swollen and
hard, her body worn from labor.

Nicoletta looked past Laurena to Aljandro, straight into his eyes. "Why
was I not summoned the instant she went into labor?" Her gaze glittered
with hot accusation.

He looked away from her immediately. They both knew why Aljandro had not
wanted to call her. He was still angry because Nicoletta had spurned his attentions
before he had turned his eye to Lissandra. He had wanted sons, workers for his
farm, and, had chosen a young bride to supply him. He had not called the healer
because he had intended to keep his earnings to himself, in hopes of becoming
wealthier. He had not thought of the consequences to so young and small a
"brood mare," and at that moment he was mortified at his own
behavior.

Nicoletta pressed her lips together to keep from lashing out at the ignorant
man and immediately set about inspecting Lissandra. Her young friend was well
advanced in her labor, the babe very large. Nicoletta had seen this too many
times. Lissandra was small, the babe large; everything was wrong. The outcome
was usually grim: both mother and child died. She looked at Laurena, and for a
moment their eyes said it all, a knowing exchange between women about a
hopeless situation that need not have occurred.

"Lissandra," she said quietly, "I am going to try to help.
The babe is still alive. You must do what I say and trust in me."
Nicoletta threw off her shawl and rolled up her sleeves, immersing her hands in
scalding water. It was one of Nicoletta's strange differences, often remarked
upon as this obsession with hot water when she tended the sick.

Fortunately, she had small hands, and she relied on her inner guide, which
always seemed to know exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. Had she been
called earlier, she was fairly confident she might have saved both mother and
child, but Lissandra was exhausted, her delicate body worn out. Nicoletta
talked her through each swelling wave of pain, all the while patiently
maneuvering until she could grasp the babe to help ease it out. Laurena thrust
a thin, rounded stick between her sister's teeth, afraid that in her wild
screaming she might swallow her tongue. Nicoletta worked steadily and
patiently, sweat running down her face so profusely that sometimes she couldn't
see.

The baby was stuck. It would die, and so would Lissandra. Nothing would ease
the baby through the tiny opening of pelvic bones. An idea of what to do on
such occasions had been in her mind for some time now, but Nicoletta shied from
trying it alone, wanting the comfort of Maria Pia's presence before she
attempted such a terrible thing. But Nicoletta didn't have the luxury of
waiting for Maria Pia. Lissandra had run out of time. Nicoletta had to act now
or never.

She looked into her friend's desperate, pleading eyes and made her decision.
Sick to her stomach, she performed her task quickly, deliberately breaking the
shoulder of the babe, then turning it with her hands to whisk it free. It slid
into the air, blue and lifeless and still. Quickly she cleared the mucous from
the throat, rubbing the infant's chest to stimulate it into taking a gulp of
air. The moment it began a thin wail, she passed the babe off to Laurena,
turning her attention quickly to cutting the cord and attending Lissandra.

Now it would be a matter of controlling the bleeding. All the while she
worked, she was nauseated at the thought of what she had done to a helpless
infant. She was sick at the knowledge that even if she saved Lissandra this
time, her husband would insist on another babe immediately, and, child that she
was, Lissandra would not take the potion Nicoletta had secretly given her to
allow her more time to grow before she became pregnant. She would obey her
husband, and she would certainly die.

Nicoletta was sick, her stomach lurching at the vast quantity of her
friend's blood that covered her, still sick at the thought of what she had been
forced to do to the babe. Most of all she was sick to death at the waste of a
young, vibrant woman whose life should have been just beginning.

Nicoletta fought to stop the inevitable. She called on her special gift, her
hands moving over Lissandra, letting the healing warmth flow out of her and
into her friend, attempting to direct the energy where it was most needed. The
effort was draining, mentally as well as physically. No one watching could say
precisely what she did, yet they could not deny that it worked.

Finally Maria Pia entered the house and immediately went to work beside her.
They were both exhausted by the time Lissandra drifted into sleep, still alive
but terribly weak.

Nicoletta left it to Maria Pia to impress up on Lissandra's husband her need
for fluids and bed rest until she was healed properly. Maria Pia would not say
the cutting, angry words that burned inside Nicoletta. All Nicoletta wanted now
was to run back to the safety of her mountain, far from the weariness and
sadness and guilt pressing in on her. But she turned her attention to the
newborn next, her hands finding the terrible crack in the bone and aligning it
perfectly, bandaging it tightly to keep it from shifting. She again used her
special gift, the touch of her hands spreading warmth and healing to the babe
as it had to Lissandra. The effort was exhausting, draining, some element she
couldn't define flowing out of her and into her patients to aid recovery, but
she used it nonetheless.

Finally she washed Lissandra's blood from her arms and slowly, wearily,
daubed at her bloodstained blouse. Laurena hugged her tearfully, then quickly
wrapped some bread and cheese into a scarf and thrust it at her, a token of her
gratitude. Too tired to protest, Nicoletta shoved the meager meal into the
pocket of her skirt. Exhausted from her sleepless night and the ordeal with
Lissandra, she explained softly to Laurena that the babe would need special
care while his shoulder healed, lit a candle to the Madonna in thanks, and left
the farmhouse without saying a single word to Lissandra's husband. She never
wanted to look at him again.

"Nicoletta!" Aljandro hurried after her, attempting to catch her
shoulder with one hamlike hand. He nearly crushed her bones there in the darkness.
She could feel his anger at her, barely leashed, and his eyes were still hot
with greed for her body even as his wife lay near death after giving birth to
his child. It sickened her.

Steadfastly she kept her gaze on the ground, fearful of lashing out at him.
She didn't dare cause any more hostility between them when she wanted to remain
Lissandra's friend and on good terms with all the
villagio.
"I am
very tired." She twisted her shoulder out from under his grasping fingers.
His touch made her stomach lurch.

Aljandro dropped his hand as if she had burned him, his stare a mixture of
anger and shame. He handed her payment but hissed something crude at her.

Without once looking back, she walked slowly to the closest stream, feeling
a hundred years old. She stood with her bare feet in the ice-cold water and
stared up at the leaves of the trees blowing to and fro above her head. She
cried then, for Lissandra and all the young girls like her, while the
crystal-clear water rushed around her and on down the stream with its soft
sound of cleansing. She blindly waded back to dry ground, where she sank into
the cushion of deep grasses, drew up her knees, and sobbed as if her heart were
breaking.

The voice came to her then,
his
voice, soft and warm, a gentle inquiry—or
was it her own need conjuring that warm and comforting voice, a soft murmur of
protest over her storm of tears? Nicoletta didn't know how he could do it, or
even if he was in league with the devil, but for the first time she welcomed
the voice whispering to her. There were no real words, more a feeling, images
of warmth and security, like strong arms enfolding her from the inside out.

A hand on her shoulder startled her, effectively stilling the voice. Or
dispelling the enchantment? A sorcerer's black-magic web? Maria Pia stroked
back her hair. "You saved their lives, Nicoletta."

"Puo darsi."
She didn't look up, her face buried on her
knees. "But for what? So the
bambino
will slave for Aljandro all of
his life, and Lissandra will go through this again and die? I hate him, Maria
Pia. I truly hate him. Aljandro did this because of me, because I refused his
attentions. Even to spare her suffering, he would not send for me. I hate
him."

"You cannot show it, Nicoletta," the older woman counseled.
"He does not forget slights to him, and you are in a very vulnerable
position."

"I do not care if he knows how I feel. I hope he does. He does not
deserve Lissandra, and I did her no favor this morning." Nicoletta cried
even harder.

"In his way he cares for her," Maria Pia explained gently.
"But he does not understand. He thinks mainly of his farm."

"How difficult is it to understand that a child cannot have a child
without fear of death, Maria Pia? His 'caring' will kill her. She is but a
brood mare to him, and when she dies, he will get another. He thinks only of
himself." She stood up and began to run, her bare legs flashing beneath
her long skirts as she raced away from the farm. From Aljandro and what he
represented. From blood and death. Yet she found herself heading for the cove.